


Heart of Stone

by TheMinsk



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Ancient curses, As you wish, F/M, Transformation, inspired by fanart on instagram, magic and mysticism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-27
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:28:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25538083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheMinsk/pseuds/TheMinsk
Summary: “How long were you trapped for?”“I don’t know, my mistress.” His piercing yellow eyes were filled with sorrow. “It felt endless.”“How old are you?”“I don’t know.”“Have you always been like this?”“I am not sure,” he looked confused and shook his head sadly. “I have no memories of anything before now. I am Kylo Ren. I am your servant.”
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 4
Kudos: 30





	Heart of Stone

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was inspired by a gorgeous work of fanart by the amazing @vivsketchess on Instagram. Here is a link to the picture:  
> https://www.instagram.com/p/CAqQEVPp01j/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

It didn’t feel like her home yet.

How could it, really? It wasn’t her home, even though her name was on all the paperwork, the deed, and tax reports. Her mentor Luke had left it to her right before he died, sadly explaining that it should have gone to his nephew Ben.

If Ben were still alive.

She lived here now with her meager possessions, the sole owner of a penthouse apartment in a gorgeous, old high-rise in Brooklyn. From her living room balcony she could see the sunset every night, watching the vibrant colors settle behind the impressive Manhattan skyline in the distance. 

She refused to take down any of the pictures.

They were of a family she would never know. Luke had told her that he was the last of the Skywalker name, and there was no one left in the family after he died. His sister and her husband had passed about a year before Luke, and his nephew, the only child of the family, had vanished without a trace five years ago.

The cops thought it might have been a suicide, but they had never found a body.

It was the only personal thing Luke had ever disclosed about his family.

So Rey couldn’t bear to throw away the pictures on the walls. Images of Luke, and his sister’s family throughout the years, lined the hallways and the living room. As an orphan, there was a longing inside of her that she couldn’t describe, and she caught herself staring at the pictures with an aching in her heart more times than she cared to admit. 

Her heart cried out for a family that didn’t exist anymore. 

Many times she wondered what had happened to Ben, based on what she had learned about his disappearance. Luke said it had happened five years ago, just short of his 30th birthday. Sometimes she caught herself staring at his nephew's graduation pictures, outlining his severe profile as a painfully young face frowned at the camera. Luke had told her that Ben had always been a serious, quiet boy, obsessed with ancient history and artifacts from forgotten lands. 

After working for Luke for a whole year, she had slowly started to piece together a story with the little snippets that he had disclosed to her. Ben had gone missing after an excavation trip with the firm he had been working for at the time. After his disappearance, Luke and his sister had traveled across the globe looking for him. They had hired private investigators, and had gotten the international police involved in the search.

The firm that had hired Ben, First Order Consultants, had immediately lawyered up and forced the staff to sign a nondisclosure agreement, stopping the investigation from moving any further.

No one had seen or heard from Ben ever again.

That was all the information that Luke would discuss with her. Now with her mentor gone, the mystery would probably stay unsolved forever. 

In his final weeks, Luke had been generous to Rey, leaving her the house and the rest of his savings, since he no longer had a beneficiary. Rey couldn’t help but feel like she was stealing from a man who wasn’t even alive. All of this should have been Ben’s.

Now it belonged to Rey, and without Luke and his research to keep her busy, she now had to navigate the world all by herself.

All alone, once again.

Rey didn’t mind all that much. She was used to being alone. 

Sometimes, at sunset, the view from her balcony just wasn’t enough. Her apartment had its own access to the roof of the building, where the entirety of Brooklyn and Manhattan seemed to stretch around her forever. She loved to sit up there and watch the sky change it’s shades, blues to reds to oranges to purples to blackness. Sometimes she even did yoga up there. 

But her favorite thing to do up on the roof was talk to the gargoyle that was perched on the northwest corner of the building. 

Rey was no stranger when it came to talking to herself. After a lifetime of loneliness, it was one of the only emotional outlets she had left. The stone statue of what she assumed to be a gargoyle was the only adornment on the building, so she used it as some twisted kind of confessional where she spoke all of her truths out loud, purging her mind of her thoughts and feelings.

Wishing she could find a way to connect to someone who was living and breathing instead of a statue made of stone.

She could not see the gargoyle’s face, since it was turned towards the skyline to the northwest, but she could see some of the other parts of its giant stone body. It’s musculature resembled something closer to the marble Greek gods of antiquity, with bulging biceps and strong forearms. Its claws gripped the side of the building as it sat crouched there, and Rey could see some of it’s pectorals and abdomen, each muscle exquisitely carved like Adonis rather than a grotesque figure. A giant bent leg was pointed towards the Manhattan skyline, it’s clawed toes resting on a protrusion from the ledge of the building. By far, the most prominent feature was its giant stone wings, curved up and around the body of the gargoyle almost as a means of protection. The wings made it hard to get too close to the gargoyle, which had to weigh at least a ton based on its size and structure. The building was well over a hundred years old, so the gargoyle must have been perched here for a long time on a ledge that came up to her waist. She liked to peek over the edge of the building, looking down from the six storey height, taking in the tiny cars and people below like she was some kind of God.

Sometimes, during her confessions, she reached out and touched the wings, or placed a hand on it’s clawed hands or feet, whatever she could reach from the odd angle. Rey wasn’t stupid enough to lean over the edge of a six-storey building to get a better look at it, but she had tried to view it from the ground multiple times. No matter what she did, what angle she attempted, how far she could zoom in with her phone's camera, she couldn’t get a good view of what the gargoyle looked like. Was it demonic and disfigured, like the gargoyles that were perched atop cathedrals and towers? Angelic, like it’s musculature would suggest? 

As an art historian, these questions sometimes kept her awake at night, wondering who had commissioned it, sculpted it, or installed it. Maybe her gargoyle was special, and came from an artistically significant pedigree? There had to be some kind of documentation about the building in the annals of Brooklyn’s history. The five boroughs of New York City were riddled with gargoyles, even on the most mundane office buildings. 

But tonight, there was no one to ask, no book to pour over or lose herself in research. She didn’t even have a job yet, and was applying to every museum in New York, hoping for the possibility of finding a new mentor, or a job that would give her a chance.

Rey was single, unemployed, on the cusp of thirty, and terribly alone in a city of millions. Whatever friends she had made in college had moved on with their lives long ago, finding partners and moving across the country, carving out lives for themselves that didn’t involve Rey.

Luke Skywalker was the only person she had left.

And now he was gone, too.

It was a scorching hot July evening as she stood on the roof with a cold bottle of water and her cell phone. The sun was setting in the distance and she was playing some music as she stood next to her gargoyle, drinking deeply from the bottle while she talked about her day. She spoke to him just like she would to a friend, babbling about everything and nothing all at the same time. The money she had saved with coupons and the friendly dog she had met when walking home from the store. The new Netflix movie she was going to watch tonight and the popcorn she was going to make in her microwave.

There were some seriously dark clouds looming in the distance, heading towards the five boroughs as the smell of impending rain filled the atmosphere. It was refreshing to feel the cooler breeze from the cold front coming in, and she put her cell phone away as the first droplets of water fell from the darkened clouds. 

She looked up at the granite creature and felt an odd sense of guilt as the rain started to fall more steadily, leaving darkened drops all over the stone surface. As pathetic as it sounded, this statue was always there for her, and she felt a special connection after confessing all of her thoughts and feelings to it over the past month since she had moved in. 

“Goodnight,” she said softly as her hand rested upon his clawed fingers. “Protect me from the storm.” She removed her hand and gave the clawed fingertips a little kiss, barely touching the stone with her lips at all. She grabbed her water bottle and made sure her phone was in her pocket before leaving the roof, heading down the access ladder right as the sky began to open up and drench everything in sight. 

She was a little damp when she entered the air conditioned apartment, and shut off the A/C so she didn’t catch a chill. A rumble of thunder echoed in the distance, and she opened her balcony door to get the full impact of the storm from the protection of her living room. The rain was pouring now, and the sound was calming to her as she busied herself around the apartment, doing the dishes and folding some laundry she had been too lazy to do earlier in the day.

The thunder was getting louder now, and she looked out of her balcony door to see bolts of lightning streaking across the blackened sky. After a giant boom of thunder made her drop the shirt she had been folding, the skies lit up in the brightest flash she had ever seen as the air around her seemed to crackle with electricity. 

Rey was pretty sure her building had been struck by lightning.

The lights flickered for a moment, and her heart skipped a beat when they went out altogether. By the looks of things, most of the area around her was out of power too.

“Great,” she muttered to herself, fiddling with the power breaker as the lights stayed off. “There goes my Netflix movie.” She went into the broom closet and found a large flashlight, which she used to light some scented candles in her living room, illuminating it in a soft glow. It sounded silly, but Rey wasn’t a fan of the darkness, so she settled in on the couch with her cellphone and the flashlight, waiting for the lights to come back on as the candles flickered in the breeze from the open balcony doors. 

Luckily, she had charged her phone that afternoon, so she had enough battery to scroll through social media and research some more museums and job opportunities. She was just about to apply for the Museum of Natural History’s souvenir shop when she heard a loud noise on the roof, booming right over her head.

It sounded like something heavy and large had fallen over, and she held her breath for a beat before a bone-chilling barrage could be heard above her. It sounded like a lion’s roar had merged with a man’s scream, tortured and anguished. Fear froze her as she sat on the couch, wondering if she should call the police. When another inhuman wail echoed from the heights above her, the sound spurred her into action.

She got up and quickly shut all the doors and windows leading outside, locking the balcony while making sure the front door was locked as well. Whatever was on her roof was starting to pace, back and forth, and Rey could count the steps as a sticky, hot, fear pumped through her blood. 

Suddenly, she remembered her private entrance to the roof. Rey ran into Luke’s old office with the flashlight, where the roof was accessible by a ladder and a hatch. She climbed the ladder and turned the red handle on the closed hatch, locking it in place. At this height, the pacing sounded even louder, and another growl could be heard, slightly muffled under the torrential rain that continued to fall.

“Oh my god, there’s some kind of animal on the roof,” she whispered to herself in the silence of the room, her flashlight providing only a dim brightness as everything around her cast abnormal shadows. She wondered if she should call the police or animal control as another low growl could be heard. She placed her ear as close to the access hatch as possible, hearing footsteps that gradually faded into nothing. 

Whatever was on her roof was now gone.

Her limbs were still shaking with the remnants of her terror as she climbed down the ladder, adrenaline pumping through her veins as her feet touched the hardwood floors. She held onto the ladder and tried to ground herself, taking deep breaths and exhaling in a rhythmic pattern. Whatever she had heard was probably just a trick from the storm. There was no way an actual animal could be on her roof, making that noise. 

After a few more moments of steady breathing, flashlight in hand, she left Luke’s office to go back into the living room. The candles cast an eerie glow around the room as they flickered in the wind from the open balcony doors.

She froze in place, remembering that she had just locked those doors a few minutes ago. Pointing her flashlight towards the floor, there were small puddles of water leading from the rain soaked balcony in the shape of massive footprints.

There was something in her house.

“Don’t be afraid.”

A deep voice spoke behind her and she screamed, dropping the flashlight and wincing at the crack of it on the hardwood floors. The flashlight broke on contact, making the darkened room even more black as the few candles provided only the slightest ambient light.

“W-who’s there?” Rey’s voice cracked and she had never been so afraid in her life.

“I am not going to hurt you,” the voice seemed to be coming from the direction of the kitchen, and when she finally turned around there was a massive black shadow approaching her, crossing the span of her living room.

As it slowly approached, the candles began to illuminate it’s massive form, almost seven feet tall, and so wide her eyes didn’t know where to look first. His skin was a darkened grey, and it wrapped around thick limbs and cut muscle as she tried to take in as much detail as possible. Yellow eyes seemed to glow as he stared at her, and with one final step forward, the candlelight was able to show her what her eyes could not interpret in the dark.

Wings. The giant creature before her had wings, massive, dark wings, with curved talons at the end of each bone segment, like a bat. They made the creature look impossibly wide as she took in the rest of his figure, which was human-like but absolutely gargantuan. Claws adorned his fingers and toes, glinting in the fire from the candlelight. He looked as if he had been carved from marble as her eyes finally took in his face. A long scar trailed from his brow to his clavicle, a bizarre yellow glow the same color of his eyes emanating from the fracture. 

But it was his face that left Rey truly speechless.

It was a face she had never seen before, yet had seen a hundred times. It was a face she found herself crying over, even though they had never met.

It was the face of a man who everyone thought was dead.

“Oh my God,” she whispered in abject horror, taking a step backwards. Her brain was not processing what she was seeing, it all didn’t seem real, and in taking another step back she felt an onslaught of rain begin to drench her. She was out on her balcony now, completely trapped as the figure before her only came closer. 

“Please,” it called to her, his low voice begging and reaching out a hand to her. “I will not hurt you.” It took another step towards her and her back hit the balcony ledge, making her panic as she wished for some kind of escape. She leaned back in terror, losing her balance and was hit with such a strong sense of vertigo she could barely feel herself falling backwards until a rush of air blew her hair forward.

Rey screamed, reaching out for something to grab onto and wrapping her hands around what felt like solid rock as she suddenly stopped falling. She looked down, hanging over fifty feet above the street level, her legs dangling helplessly in the air. When she looked up, she saw the creature hovering above her, his giant wings flapping in the downpour of rain. He held onto her wrist as he propelled them upwards with his massive wingspan, pumping his wings twice and lifting her back onto the balcony. She collapsed onto the concrete surface, soaked and scared and unable to move as the flying figure landed and folded his wings behind him, making him appear smaller and less frightening.

She watched as he bent down on one knee and bowed to her, holding his arms out at his sides.

“I mean you no harm, My Mistress. I am here at your service.”

Rey had no idea what was happening right now. As much as she wanted to believe that this was all some kind of elaborate dream, she was soaking wet and had almost fallen off a six storey building. A winged man, creature, thing, had saved her life and was kneeling before her with promises not to hurt her. 

“W-what are-? Who are you?” She didn’t know what question to ask him first.

“I am Kylo Ren, my mistress. You have liberated me from my stone prison. I am forever your humble servant.”

“S-stone prison?” The rain around them was loud and she couldn’t be sure she was hearing him correctly. “Humble servant?” She took in the winged form of the creature before her, his size and his width and his words making a twisted kind of sense to her. When the sky brightened up with lightning once more she looked up at the northwest corner of her building and her suspicions were confirmed.

Her winged gargoyle was gone from its perch.

And was now kneeling before her on her balcony, pledging his life to her.

“This is impossible,” she muttered, shaking her head as she tried to stand on unsteady legs. “This can’t be real.”

“I did not know how to approach you without causing you distress, My Mistress. Please do not be afraid.” He lifted his head, this creature named Kylo Ren, and saw pain reflecting in his yellow eyes. With the bright yellow scar bisecting his face, Rey thought he looked like a renaissance painting of Lucifer, as he stood up again to his towering height. “You have freed me and as such, I am yours forevermore.” 

She began to shiver in the rain, her teeth chattering from the shock of the last few minutes as water soaked through every inch of her clothes. As ridiculous as it seemed, this was actually happening. This was not a dream.

“Please, Mistress, let me take you inside,” he reached out for her, and this time she did not feel the same surge of panic as she did during their frightening introduction. “You are trembling.”

“O-okay.” She placed her hand in his and he held onto it gently as she took in the firm smoothness of his dark skin. It felt almost as if she was touching a living, breathing piece of marble as he led her back into the dry comfort of her apartment.

“You need to dry off, My Mistress, before you catch an illness,” he let go of her hand and placed a fist over his heart. “Please tell me what I can do to provide comfort.”

Before she could open her mouth, a small buzzing could be heard before her electricity finally went back on, bathing the entire apartment in a harsh light as her eyes strained to adjust. After blinking a few times, she was able to finally take in the entirety of the entity known as Kylo Ren.

And realized that he was wearing nothing but a flap of black loincloth as his winged form stood in her living room.

“Um, do you have something you can put on?” She said bashfully, turning her head away from him as she ripped her linen closet open. She grabbed a towel for herself and wrapped it around her soaking wet body.

“No, My Mistress,” he admitted. “Does my form not please you?”

“No, it pleases me,” she admitted before realizing what she said. “I mean, it’s very distracting, but it’s okay, don’t worry about it.” Rey shook her head, cursing her own stupidity. Could this Kylo Ren even fit a shirt over his massive wings? Did they even make pants for legs so long and thick? “Do you have to keep calling me Mistress?”

He looked scandalized. “Why of course, My Mistress! It would be the highest form of disrespect to call you anything else.”

“My name is Rey,” she rubbed her hands and legs with the towel before bringing it up to her dripping hair. “And you said your name was Kylo Ren.”

“Yes, and I cannot even begin to express my gratitude, Mistress Rey. I only hope my service is enough.” He bowed at her again when Rey noticed something she hadn’t before. A bright golden cuff adorned his left wrist, and in the light of the apartment she could see intricate images carved into the metal. It was the only thing on his body besides his loincloth and the deep yellow scar that seemed to glow from under his marble-like skin.

“You said I saved you from your stone prison,” she said as he lifted his head towards her again. She was consumed over how much he looked like Luke Skywalker’s missing nephew as she took in the curve of his jaw and the slope of his brow. His nose, lips, cheeks, even his long dark hair looked like the man whose picture she had obsessed over for the past month. “How long were you trapped for?”

“I don’t know, my mistress.” His piercing yellow eyes were filled with sorrow. “It felt endless.”

“How old are you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Have you always been like this?”

“I am not sure,” he looked confused and shook his head sadly. “I have no memories of anything before now. I am Kylo Ren. I am your servant.” His hollow tone sent daggers into her chest as she looked upon the figure bowed before her.

“My servant, what does that mean?”

“I am to provide you with anything you wish. I am to fulfill any desire you choose.”

She tried not to let those words affect her. “Are you like a genie or something?”

“A genie?” He cocked his head in confusion. “No, I am Kylo Ren. I am meant to protect and serve my Mistress. It is my destiny.”

Rey shook her head, too confused and overwhelmed to process his cryptic statements. She needed to change out of her wet clothes and maybe do some research on hallucinations and the effect of stress and trauma on the human psyche. She did a little sidestep around him and headed down the hallway towards her bedroom, walking backwards.

“I am going to take a shower and change. You stay right here and don’t move!” She pointed her finger at him as if she was talking to a dog and felt guilty, dropping her hand as she turned and ran down the hallway. Her bedroom had its own ensuite and she entered the bathroom and locked the door, placing her palms down on the bathroom sink and staring at her soaked reflection in the mirror. 

There was a creature in her living room. A stone statue that came to life and looked identical to a man who has been missing for five years and was presumed dead. A creature who had no memory of anything before he had been awoken. A creature who called her “Mistress” and pledged himself to serving her, whatever that meant.

Rey pressed her fingertips to her temples, swirling them around and trying to focus. All she wanted was to take a shower, go back out to the living room and realize this was all just an elaborate fantasy concocted from a touch-starved, lonely mind. She didn’t want to think about the possibility of this all being real as she turned on the water and tried to distract herself, standing in the steamy water and washing herself on autopilot. 

When Rey was finished, she went over to her bedroom door and placed her ear against the wood, listening for any sound on the other side. She didn’t hear anything and emerged from her room in her most comfortable pair of pajamas, shuffling down the hallway and wondering if the winged man was still there.

Her heart hammered when she found him standing in the exact same spot in her living room, in the exact same position she had left him in a half an hour ago. In fact, she thought he had maybe turned back into a statue, since he didn’t seem to be blinking at all. 

“Kylo?” She called out softly, and he blinked his yellow eyes again, bowing his head towards her.

“Yes, my mistress?”

“Are you okay? You weren’t moving.”

He looked at her with innocence in his gaze. “You told me not to, My Mistress. Did I do something wrong?”

“No,” she sighed as her heart sank. What was she going to do with him? “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Have I displeased you in any way?”

“No, Kylo, you haven’t.” She shuffled her way into the kitchen, refilling the water bottle she had been drinking earlier. “Can I get you something to eat? Drink?”

“I require no sustenance, My Mistress.” She whipped her head around to stare at him incredulously.

“What? Not even water?”

“No,” his brow furrowed in confusion. “I neither eat or drink.”

“Do you sleep?” She joined him in the living room and sat down on her couch. He came to crouch at her feet, looking up at her with that same innocent gaze that threatened to rip her heart in two. “Come sit next to me,” she patted the cushion next to her and he shook his head.

“No, I could never, My Mistress,” his low voice sounded scandalized. “I do not sleep per se, but I fear that my presence here is temporary. I will return to my stony perch once the sun rises.”

“What?” Rey was horrified at his announcement. “But I thought you said I freed you?”

“Yes, you did,” he explained. “But I can only emerge when the sun goes down. I do not exist in the light. Only darkness.”

"How do you know all of this?" 

His eyes were confused as he shook his head. "I don't know. It is as it has always been." 

She mulled over his cryptic words, thinking deeply and staring at the cuff on his wrist. “Kylo, what’s this?” she pointed at his wrist and he lifted up his left arm to give her a better view.

“It is the only thing I can remember,” he said softly. “I remember someone, an old man, he placed it on my wrist, and…” he trailed off, his voice getting softer, and she urged him to continue as she held onto every word he spoke.

“And what, Kylo, what happened?”

“It hurt,” his brow furrowed as he struggled to remember. “My whole body hurt, every bone and muscle. It was excruciating. Then I felt no pain. Then there was darkness.” He blinked once and looked back up at Rey. “Then there was you.”

Rey looked down into the soulful yellow eyes of her stone servant and her heart shattered for him. She decided to test her theory about Luke’s missing nephew and went over to the bookshelf, where she picked up his graduation picture.

“Kylo, does the name Ben mean anything to you?” She showed him the picture and he took it from her slowly, his gaze clouded with confusion as he took in the identical image before him. “Do you know who this is?”

“Ben?” He said the name out loud a couple of times, as if testing it on his tongue. “Ben. Ben. Ben.”

“This man looks like you. He went missing five years ago. His name was Ben.” She didn’t know Ben’s last name, and since his mother was Luke’s sister, they probably had different last names after she married.

“I-I don’t know, My Mistress. I’m sorry,” he looked devastated to disappoint her as she sighed deeply. 

“It’s okay, Kylo, I’m not mad at you.” She took the picture from him and stared at the image of the lost man. The lost man who looked so much like the living statue before her. “Let me see that cuff again."

Kylo extended his left hand towards her and she used her phone’s camera to take pictures of the cuff and the intricate carvings etched into it. “I’m an art historian, but my concentration was in European Art, so I don’t know much about these ancient images. I’ll do some research tomorrow at the library to see if there’s anything I can find.”

Kylo looked up at her with hope in his gaze. “You are as intelligent as you are beautiful. I am so lucky to have you as my mistress.”

Rey hoped her face didn’t look too red as heat bloomed under her skin. “I never thought magic existed, but this cuff may be the key to helping you, Kylo.” Either he was some kind of ancient, immortal being, or magic did exist and he was the victim of some kind of curse. Maybe Kylo really was Ben, and this cuff was the key to solving the mystery that had ruined Luke Skywalker’s family. She owed it to her mentor to try. 

With the lights back on, Rey knew she should finish the chores she had started before her concept of reality had been shattered, but she felt awkward sitting in her living room with a person who had quite literally been a statue only an hour earlier. What was she supposed to do with him? He only existed at night, and there was very little to do around her apartment since she couldn’t bring him out in public.

There was one idea that immediately popped into her head, especially since he had promised multiple times to fulfill all of her heart’s desires, but she quickly chased that idea as far away from her mind as possible. There was no way she was going to use Kylo as some kind of sex toy, since he obviously could not say no to her even if he wanted to. While he cut an incredibly impressive figure with his face and physique, she had to focus on the practical issues she was facing at the moment, not the multiple ways a man like him could bring desire and pleasure into her very sex-deprived life.

Because it had been quite a while since a man had shared her bed, and Kylo’s offer was a very enticing one.

No, the best thing she could do for him, for the both of them, was to keep him occupied before she turned in for the night and dedicated her days to helping him. She checked her phone and saw that sunrise was at 5:45am. Right now it was a little after 10pm and she was exhausted both physically and mentally. That left them with a little less than eight hours before sunrise, and she did have to get some kind of sleep if she was going to the library tomorrow to start her research.

“I’m setting an alarm for 5:30,” she told him while he watched her with those sad puppy eyes she was slowly acclimating herself to. “If you’re going to be turning back into a statue, I’m going to be there for it.”

“Why?” He asked sadly. 

“Because I need to see this for myself,” she said with a firm nod. “I am a historian, and I need evidence with my own eyes that everything you said was true.” He was still crouched on the ground, looking up at her like she had hung the moon in the sky. “What about you? What will you do all night?”

“I will protect you, My Mistress. It is my duty to keep you safe and happy at all times.” He made that same gesture as he had earlier, pounding his right fist over his heart. “Even if you are simply sleeping I will be by your side, standing guard.”

Rey didn’t know if she liked the idea of Kylo watching her sleep all night long, but she found that she had little choice in the matter. As ridiculous as it sounded, her stone sentinel was now a part of her life, and she found it incredibly difficult to say no to him when he was so artlessly adamant about everything he believed to be true in his version of reality. 

“Alright, but I want you to be comfortable, too. There’s an extra bedroom, and you can use it as your own personal space if you want.”

He cocked his head in confusion, looking more like a lost puppy than he had before. “Mistress wants to give me my own room?” He looked away, shaking his head in wonder. “You are as benevolent as a goddess.”

“Please, Kylo, I am not a goddess, or a mistress, or any of that! I’m just Rey!”

“No, no, you are the kindest, most beautiful. . .”

“Alright,” she interrupted him, his effusive praise overwhelming her and her fragile emotions. “I get it, Kylo.”

“Is there anything I can do for you, My Mistress? Any way I may assist you or your needs before your slumber?” His tone was innocent, but his words stoked a fire inside of her that she was ashamed to admit was heating up.

“No, Kylo, but let me show you how to use the remote or something so you can watch TV. . .” The next few minutes were some of the most surreal of her life as she taught the winged man how to use her television. He was confused as she changed the channels, getting close to the screen and poking it with one clawed finger.

“What is this sorcery?” He asked in wonder. “How did these people get inside the flat rectangle?” He tried to look behind the set, but it was screwed into the wall of her living room. His wings were so wide it blocked the entire screen from her view as she stifled a small giggle. His wide-eyed innocence was refreshingly hilarious and endearing, but it troubled her that Kylo knew so little of the complicated world around him. She needed to set some ground rules before she went to bed.

“Now Kylo, there are some rules that we need to put in place if you are to stay with me at night.” He immediately stopped his investigation of the television set and bowed to her again, dropping onto his knee and bowing his head. A thick curtain of his glossy black hair covered most of his face from view.

“Yes, whatever my mistress says is my honor to follow.”

She took a deep breath before laying out their new protocol. “Under no circumstance are you to leave this apartment without me unless I give you express permission to do so, do you understand?”

“Of course, My Mistress.”

“I am not trying to control you, but the world I live in is very complicated, and people would not understand. They might try to hurt you.” Knowing the world as it was, they would probably try to throw him in some kind of lab, dissecting him like some kind of perverted experiment.

“I understand completely, My Mistress. I am blessed to have a mistress who wants to keep me safe.” She went over to him and stood next to his bowed head, reaching down and running her fingers through his hair. While his skin was cold and stone-like, his hair was lush and soft and glossy, and he seemed to preen under the attention while she slipped her digits through his tresses. 

“I’m going to help you, Kylo. I promise.”

“You have already helped me, My Mistress. I am free because of you.”

But Kylo wasn’t truly free, Rey thought to herself while she sat awake in bed about an hour later. Kylo was still in the living room, hopefully watching TV and finding something to distract him for the night. Sleep eluded her as her mind raced with all the different questions that now existed in her life. 

How was she, an orphan nobody, able to free Kylo from his “stone prison?” How long had he been an ornament on her building? Why did he have the face of a missing man? There had to be some kind of connection to Luke’s extinct family tree, it was simply too coincidental to be chance. Her questions were endless and she hardly knew where to begin her research. 

At some point during the night Rey must have fallen asleep, because her alarm rang at 5:30 and snapped her out of a light slumber. She immediately rushed out into the living room, her heart stopping when she realized that Kylo wasn’t there. The door to the balcony was open, however, and she quickly headed for Luke’s old office and climbed the ladder to the roof.

When she opened the hatch and finished her ascent, the roof was littered with puddles of rainwater from last night’s storm. Her eyes immediately went to the northwest corner of the building, where Kylo was standing on his perch, watching the twinkling lights of the city as the first spots of sun came over the eastern horizon behind them.

“Kylo?” She called to him and he turned around, the same helpless look on his face as earlier in the evening.

“Mistress, you came,” he shuddered as she watched his skin coloring turn a lighter grey, into the concrete color she had always associated with her statue. It was actually happening and she couldn't believe her eyes. 

“I’m right here, Kylo,” she touched him on his wing and could feel the skin grow hard and coarse under her fingertips. “And I’ll be here when the sun sets tonight.”

“I’m scared, Mistress Rey,” he confessed to her as he crouched into position, one leg bent towards the horizon. “What if I don’t wake up again?”

“I will find a way to save you Kylo, I promise.” Tears entered her eyes as his wings suddenly extended outwards. The last thing she saw was him ducking his head as his wings wrapped around him in a protective cocoon, turning back into stone before her very eyes.

“Kylo?” She called as the sun made its ascent in the east, bathing Kylo’s wings in light. “Kylo?” When he didn’t answer, the tears dripped down her cheeks in an endless cascade as she collapsed onto the roof of her building, sobbing and repeating her oath over and over again as she looked up at his stony figure.

“I promise I will save you.”


End file.
